Presidents Report

Peter Werth
Welcome to the first COCA News for 2003, and to the new look of the publication. The revised contemporary look reflects the College’s move to become increasingly professional and to make COCA News more readable. This similar themed look will be carried through to other publications and brochures that will enable you to readily identify COCA related items. We hope you like it and enjoy this issue.

This year should prove to be a very busy one for the College with seminars now in most states and territories, and some additional workshops planned.

As you can see in the advertisement in this issue we are pleased to announce that we have been able to secure the services of Drs John Triano and Marion McGregor who are two of the most widely published and eminent researchers within chiropractic. They bring with them a wealth of knowledge in a variety of areas and their presentations will be extremely informative. We have also secured Dr Randy Ferrance from Virginia in the USA. After Dr Ferrance completed his chiropractic degree at Life College, he moved on to complete his medical training. He has subsequently completed specialist training in internal medicine and paediatrics. Randy is thus uniquely qualified and will bring with him an exceptional perspective on a variety of issues that affect the practice of both chiropractic and osteopathy. Dr Ferrance has also kindly agreed to run a one day workshop on paediatrics developed specifically for the chiropractor and osteopath. Further details of the conference and workshop will be forthcoming, and I urge you to register early, as this should be a sensational three days.

The regular seminar series will continue covering a wide range of topics. Some centres will be running workshops, such as Outcome Measures Workshops, which have been initiated following the interest at last year’s National Conference. Keep your eye out for the seminar mail-outs and COCA News updates.

Our new Executive Director John Jannese has not been letting the grass grow under his feet since his arrival at COCA. He is actively sourcing many new member benefits, some of which are announced elsewhere in the newsletter.

I am sure that you will be all too aware of the difficulties experienced in obtaining an underwriter for our Professional Indemnity (PI) insurance for this year. In late November, we were informed by our existing underwriter that they were no longer writing this type of business, and hence we needed to secure a new underwriter at the ‘eleventh hour’. With the assistance of our Broker AON, every effort was made to secure an underwriter, both locally and internationally, but the shrinking pool of insurers and re-insurers who were willing to write this type of business, was virtually nil.

The distinction between practitioners undertaking risk management versus those that are not, has not had an immediate positive effect. When Royal Sun Alliance (RSA) announced they were no longer prepared to underwrite our professions, the data could not suggest to a new Insurer immediate improvement and therefore a reason to maintain the discounted premiums RSA had been offering. The Risk Management Program had only been distributed in March 2002. Its true effect will not be known for at least a 12 month period.

A new Insurer had to take into consideration our profession as a whole when doing the actuarial study regarding the required premium pool. This led to the escalation of premiums to the current level.

This has been in part due to the lumping together of all practitioners into one chiropractic risk pool, with there being no distinction made at this time between those practitioners who undertake a best-practice approach, via completing a recognised risk management program, and those who do not. Hence, the escalation of premiums to the current level. Given the number of claims against chiropractors as a profession at present, the premium pool of funds needed to cover the potential level of claims requiring a payout unfortunately required a significant premium hike. All practitioners were alarmed by this, and those who take appropriate measures to limit the likelihood of claims are unfairly lumped in with the rest of the pack. It would seem that higher premiums in many areas of life are now a fact of life.

So what can be done to improve the situation for practitioners and maintain the optimum level of patient care? Following meetings with the current underwriter QBE and the AON representatives, we have been given assurances that their commitment to COCA is strong, and they want to move forward with us. They are also strongly committed to the risk management process and are keen, as we are at COCA, to ensure that risk management remains at the focus of maintaining and improving patient care, and in turn reducing claims against chiropractors (there are little if any claims at this time against osteopaths). The bottom line in all of this is if you want premiums to be lower in the long term, then the profession needs to reduce the frequency of claims and practice accordingly. COCA is working closely with QBE and AON to ensure that those COCA members who do practice safely will not be disadvantaged by the wider trends in this field.

We will keep you informed with developments as they occur.